When the RCMP showed up to raid the Vancouver Island protest camp last week, a forest protector named Fae ran to a cut block, down a dirt road and trekked into a valley where she climbed via rope 80 feet in the air to a perch known as a “tree sit” — a wooden platform that’s been hoisted into the air and anchored next to a tree, allowing activists to stay there for long periods of time to block the logging of ancient forests.
“Fae” (camp names are used to protect identity) is a young environmental anthropology student with an undergraduate in law who has been living in the forest with her comrades since September. Her supplies were already waiting inside her tarp covered platform, a sleeping bag, snacks, water and a book. That night, alone in the forest, swaying slowly on her perch next to the ancient cedar tree, she felt the bitterness of winter settling into her bones.
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“It was snowing when I got up there,” she told Ricochet. “I had a go bag that had my harness and some layers. But I got in there, I stripped down and got into an emergency blanket inside of my sleeping bag. That was good. On Tuesday morning I made myself some coffee and oatmeal and then the RCMP surrounded the tree on the ground.”
“They said to me, very clear, ‘If you interfere with our line at all, we will shoot you.’ And I said ‘shoot me with what? And they said ‘real bullets.’”
The RCMP were enforcing a court-ordered injunction against the land defenders who’ve been camping near the Walbran Valley for more than three months to protect old-growth trees from logging. The group, numbering fewer than two dozen people, had established a blockade on an industry road leading to a cut block where ancient trees have been marked for harvest.
The injunction was issued in September but went unenforced for two and a half months. On September 11, a B.C. Supreme Court judge granted the injunction request from Tsawak-Qin Forestry Limited Partnership and Tsawak-Qin Forestry Inc., who argued the blockade was causing “irrevocable harm” to their operations. The companies cited potential losses of eleven full-time jobs and over $3 million in revenue, warning that the “situation is spinning out of control again” as it did during the highly publicized 2021 Fairy Creek protests.
Several people were arrested and charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction. Although RCMP cleared the headquarters of what had been named Cougar Camp — burning supplies and wood structures on site — the land defenders have since established a new protest camp nearby.
Fae told Ricochet it took the RCMP several hours to get her down. After failing to catapult a line to secure it to one of the tree’s limbs near her platform, she says the RCMP used a drone to carry a rope to secure a line into.
“An officer said that I could propel myself down or I would be extracted,” she said. “I said ‘this is unceded territory and we’re here at the explicit request of Elder Bill Jones. I was not going down of my own volition.”
At one point, while the RCMP were preparing for an officer to climb up to remove Fae from the platform, she said she was given a stern warning.
“They said to me, very clear, ‘If you interfere with our line at all, we will shoot you.’ And I said ‘shoot me with what? And they said ‘real bullets’” Fae was told, adding that the officers were notably concerned for their own safety while making the ascent to extract her.
“I was freezing cold in this blanket and I just kept feeling, ‘I must be the luckiest person in the world. I get to be in this tree and stand for something I believe in.’”
“They said that if I came out of the tarp that I was sitting in, if I stuck my head or anything out of the tree sit, they’d be worried I was interfering with their line and they’d shoot me. But we’re very clear that we’re a non-violent movement and I would never do anything to interfere with their safety.”
When the officer reached her, she said he asked her to propel down the tree. When she refused, he wrapped her in a yellow harness and guided her down to the ground. From there she was arrested, charged with contempt of court and then released.
Fae immediately returned to join her comrades in a new camp they’d established not too far away that they called “Ambitious Camp.”
Fae plans to stay for as long as she can because she believes strongly in protecting the forest, even if that means putting her safety at risk.
“It seems like it would be really scary, but when I was there, I felt really safe. I have this incredible opportunity. Really, I feel so lucky (when I was in there). That was my biggest feeling, which is so funny. I was freezing cold in this blanket and I just kept feeling, ‘I must be the luckiest person in the world. I get to be in this tree and stand for something I believe in.’”
Fae, who says she has never been charged with a civil or criminal offence before, vows to continue fighting to save the trees marked for logging.
“I think we have a lot of bite left in us and they (RCMP) make a mistake when they underestimate us. We’re still holding, they’re not falling trees right now.”
Before Fae was extracted from her tree sit another forest defender called “Pocket” had rushed to attach himself to a “sleeping dragon” device. The dragons are designed to make arrests as difficult as possible for police to remove people. The device can be made from PVC pipe, chains, and carabiner. It allows a protester to lock themselves to a structure or another person in a way that’s time-consuming and complex for officers to dismantle. Using one can result in additional criminal charges.
Pocket, who is a wildland firefighter, attached his arm inside a dragon that was placed on the inside of a large metal barrel, cemented into the ground and inside filled with cement and water.
During the several hours of the extraction process, Pocket said he engaged in conversations with the police.
He told Ricochet he laid on the ground with his arm in the barrel for 12 hours before he was removed.
It was an intense and intimidating feeling when the RCMP brought in an excavator to dig out the barrel, said Pocket.
“It was kind of a crazy scene because I had been stuck in the ground all day. I was a little out of it just from the fact that my arm was stuck there, I wasn’t able to move much. There was a lot of fire (around me because the camp structures were being burned), and I looked at the head of the excavator and the entire time all I could think was ‘this thing looks like the head of a snake’.”
He said the RCMP placed a plank of wood in front of him to help protect him while the excavator was digging. He said there were a few moments he thought he might be dragged away with the barrel.
“I’m estimating the barrel weighed something in the realm of 1200 to 1300 pounds, with all the concrete and metal and water inside. So, when the excavator was digging beside it, there was the occasional moment where I started to feel the barrel move. Which had me terrified because if it moved, I was moving with it.”
“There’s no reason to just cut this all down for such little money. For nothing. We’re being so selfish and greedy and inconsiderate and shortsighted.”
During the several hours of the extraction process, Pocket said he engaged in conversations with the police. He said he was curious about their work and how they feel about what they’re doing. He also explained to them why he’s passionate about saving the trees from being mowed down.
“You know, I found that the more I was able to talk with them and remind them that ultimately, we don’t need to be enemies. We can actually work together. At the end of the day, they’re just guys doing their jobs. Then they started to change how they conducted themselves. At the end, a lot of them were congratulating me on how long I had been in the barrel and how impressive they found that.
“It seemed like they really wanted to understand why these things are so important to us and why we’re willing to take these risks to stand up for what we believe in.”
Pocket was arrested and charged with contempt of court and then released. He also returned to the gravel roads towered by forests and cut blocks near the Walbran Valley, pledging to rejoin his comrades to save the ancient trees.
“The trees and the nature around me, and the way it hurts when I see these cut blocks, there’s no reason to just cut this all down for such little money. For nothing. We’re being so selfish and greedy and inconsiderate and shortsighted, and we don’t see how much we’re harming ourselves and the things around us, and that there is a better way and that it’s worth fighting for,” he said.
The group of forest defenders are braving the cold and using a converted school bus equipped with bunk beds for shelter. They plan to hunker down for as long as possible.
The injunction permits to stay in the area without police interference as long as no one is “impeding, physically obstructing, or in any way interfering with any person, including any member of the public, from gaining access to or egress from, or otherwise making use of any road, road construction site or planned road construction site situated within the Carmanah Valley area on Vancouver Island near Lake Cowichan.”
